Boulder DA: Alex Midyette released from prison too soon

By Alex Burness

Camera Staff Writer

Posted:
08/05/2014 04:11:18 PM MDT

Updated:
08/05/2014 08:32:46 PM MDT

Alex Midyette (Camera file photo)

Alex Midyette, sentenced in 2009 to 16 years in prison for neglecting his infant son as the child was dying, has been transferred to a halfway house — but the Boulder County District Attorney's Office says his release was premature.

"The position of our office is that he has not served enough time in the Department of Corrections given the crime that he was convicted of," Assistant DA Ryan Brackley said.

Midyette was convicted of criminally negligent child abuse in February 2009, about three years after 10-week-old Jason Midyette was found dead with more than 30 broken bones and a skull fracture.

The jurors had split on the more severe charge of reckless and knowing child abuse resulting in death.

"Hindsight is 20/20, and I will have to live with that for the rest of my life," Midyette said at the time, when asked why he didn't take his son to get immediate medical care. "There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel a hole in my heart and a hole in my soul."

Midyette, the son of a wealthy Boulder architect and property owner, J. Nold Midyette, was ultimately given the maximum sentence.

In March, however, the community corrections board in Boulder County voted to have Midyette transferred to a residential corrections facility in Longmont.

Before that decision was approved, the DA's Office made clear a desire to keep Midyette behind bars.

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"Our feeling," Brackley said, "was that the judge had sentenced him to the maximum sentence he could possibly give him. Given the court's intent to sentence him to the maximum, we felt a release into the community at this point was too soon."

Midyette's ex-wife, Molly, now using her maiden name of Bowers, was convicted of child abuse resulting in death and also sentenced to 16 years in prison. She, too, was transferred to a halfway house before completing the sentence.

In late 2012, District Attorney Stan Garnett said his office considered Molly's transfer "appropriate."